Anxiety and Memory Test Performance

The present study examined the relationship of extra-test anxiety to memory test performance among patients undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass (N = 47) and back surgery (N = 24). These patients were chosen because they are often anxious before surgery and thus serve as a model of extra-test anxiety. This examination is important in neuropsychology because anxiety may serve as an extraneous factor compromising the validity of attention and memory scores. Anxiety level, determined from self-report and experimenter ratings, and memory performance, as measured by the Memory Assessment Scales and memory self-report, were assessed 1 to 2 days presurgery and approximately 6 weeks post surgery. The study further examined whether anxiety's influence on test performance is mediated by an impulsive cognitive style, as indicated by the Matching Familiar Figures Test. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed no significant change in state anxiety during the testing interval. MANOVA did reveal significant differences between the two surgery groups on anxiety, and younger patients demonstrated greater anxiety about their upcoming surgery. An examination of the intercorrelations of anxiety and memory scores revealed that they do not share variance and are essentially unrelated. Although the subjects were moderately anxious about the upcoming surgery, this did not apparently influence their performance on memory tests.